Abstract This work presents a study on effect of cutting parameters in force, texture and chips morphology obtained during the turning of a self-lubricating sintered composite. The tests were performed varying the cutting speed (vc = 100 and 200 m/min), feed (f = 0.1 and 0.2 mm), depth of cut (ap = 0.5 and 1 mm), as well as the materials manufacturing route in single pressing (SP) and double pressing (DP). The variation in the cutting parameters influenced the components of the machining force. The cutting, feed and passive force were approximately 10%, 10% e 25% higher, respectively, for DP materials. The turning process generated surfaces with values of maximum height (Sz) between 28.3 to 10.8 μm, Kurtosis (Sku) > 3 and Skewness (Ssk) < 0.3. The chip type obtained was segmented and the chip thickness ratio was influenced by the variation of the cutting parameters and the materials manufacturing route.